I take a lot of pride in this: when I put a business through a formal insolvency process, I want the people involved to come out wiser. Not just ‘case closed’, but genuinely better equipped. Most of the time, in SME land, that happens.
But it seems as if retail is an exception.
We keep seeing the same brands go under, get ‘rescued’ – I’ve put that in inverted commas because I’d argue they have not been rescued- only to reappear in trouble again… sometimes within just 12 to 24 months. That is not a one-off accident. It is a pattern.
And if we are honest, it raises an uncomfortable question for the insolvency profession: are we sometimes running a technically correct process that lets a failing model limp on, while the real losses land on people who can least afford it?
A live – and recent – example: Quiz
Quiz is a clean case study because the timeline is clear and recent.
- February 2025: Quiz called in administrators and a pre-pack was reported, with assets acquired by Orion Retail, described as controlled by the founding family. (Daily Business)
- 5 February 2026: administrators from Interpath were appointed again to Orion Retail and related companies trading as Quiz, with the online store shut immediately and redundancies announced. (Startups.co.uk)
Whatever label you put on it, the story is simple: formal insolvency, a ‘new start’, then another collapse quickly, before the ink on the first failure documents dried properly.
That is rarely ‘bad luck’. It is usually one of these:
- the business model did not change enough
- management did not change enough
- funding and incentives did not support a proper reset
- or all three
Repeat failures: a quick list…
Here are some UK retail examples where reputable coverage shows a first insolvency event followed quickly by a second.
M&Co
- 2020: administration and rescue deal reported
- 2022: back into administration again (Taylor Wessing)
Bonmarché
- 2020: second administration in a year; previously rescued earlier that year (The Industry Fashion)
Cath Kidston
- 2020: administration (referenced in later reporting)
- 2023: back into administration again; brand sold to Next (BBC)
Paperchase
- 2021: administration and immediate sale; SIP 16 documentation available (BBC)
- 2023: later collapse; brand/IP bought by Tesco (stores not saved) (BBC)
Debenhams
- 2019: administration; lenders took control
- 2020: second administration followed (BBC)
You could add plenty more names, but you do not need a list of 30 to accept the point: repeat failure exists, and retail is where it clusters.
For balance… rescues that actually worked okay.
If we are going to criticise repeat failure, we should also show what a ‘good rescue’ looks like.
Bensons for Beds
Reporting shows it returned to profitability, linked to a proper turnaround plan and growth. (Retail Gazette)
What changed? Not just debt. Real operational work: stores, online, product, discipline.
FatFace (under Next)
FatFace returned to profit after being acquired by Next (reporting based on filed accounts). (Retail Gazette)
What changed? Ownership by a serious operator with repeatable retail execution, plus operational tightening.
Peacocks
Peacocks was rescued from administration and later returned to profitability (again reported with reference to filed accounts). (Retail Consortium)
What changed? Restructuring plus operating reset, not just a new legal wrapper.
HMV
HMV returned to profit after its rescue, helped by a clearer niche and sharper execution (Clarke Willmott).
The common thread in the success stories: the business actually changed. New ownership with execution ability, investment where it mattered, a clearer offer, and discipline. Not just ‘same shop, less debt’.
Are Insolvency Practitioners doing a good job, or just running the script?
This is where we need to separate two meanings of ‘good’.
An IP can do a very good job in the legal and regulatory sense:
- protect the estate
- comply with insolvency law and Statements of Insolvency Practice
- control risk, evidence, and stakeholder heat
- deliver the ‘statutory purpose’ of administration in the time and cash available
The problem is that does not automatically create a sustainable retailer.
Retail appointments are often late. Cash is gone, supplier trust is broken, leases are bleeding, and customers have already moved on. At that point, most insolvency work is triage, not transformation.
So yes, an IP can be technically excellent and still preside over an outcome that fails again.
That said, here is the standard I think matters.
If a business fails quickly after I’ve been involved, I would be asking myself where I fell short
If I see a company fail again quickly after I have been involved personally, I would be asking myself:
- What did I miss about the business model?
- What did I miss about management’s ability and willingness to change?
- Did I accept a continuity deal dressed up as a rescue?
- Did I challenge the new owners and funders hard enough on what would genuinely be different?
I would do this for professional pride.
And it leads to a difficult question for the profession: are we asking ourselves these questions often enough, or are we too ready to hide behind ‘process delivered, let’s move on’?
The funding question: who backs Rescue 2.0+, and who really takes the pain?
When a retailer goes through a first insolvency event, you often see a second attempt funded by specialist lenders, distressed investors, or private equity. Sometimes that second attempt is properly funded and properly re-built. Sometimes it is simply a financial re-set with a new cash injection, but no real change in what the customer sees.
And incentives matter, because in a second or third ‘rescue’, not everyone carries the same risk.
Here are two repeat-failure examples that show both sides.
Example 1: TM Lewin (second administration, secured lender cushioned)
TM Lewin went into administration for the second time in less than two years. Reporting at the time described unsecured creditors being left heavily out of pocket, while the secured creditor was expected to recover a large proportion of what it was owed. (Business Matters)
That doesn’t mean there was any wrongdoing, this is simply how the capital stack works. But it creates a fair question: if the secured money is cushioned, does that reduce the pressure to do the hard, painful work that makes a retailer genuinely viable?
Because if the business fails again, the losses do not vanish. They land somewhere.
Example 2: HMV (second insolvency, secured creditors take real pain)
HMV is the counter-example that keeps this honest. HMV went into administration again in December 2018, its second in six years. Later reporting said secured creditors faced a material shortfall. (The Times)
So yes, secured creditors and funders do sometimes lose serious money too. The point is not that funders always win. The point is that outcomes vary wildly depending on security and structure.
The blunt questions this forces us to ask
- Is Rescue 2.0 being funded to support a real fix, or simply to keep the brand alive a little longer?
- If the funder is well protected, how hard are they really pushing for long-term success, versus a tidy outcome where the pain lands elsewhere?
- When the second attempt fails, who actually pays for that experiment?
In practice, it is usually the same group that bleeds: trade creditors, HMRC, employees, and communities. And the figures for the level of debt owed to trade creditors are often astronomic, with normally no chance of any recovery.
It’s madness to do the same things and wonder why you’re getting the same result
That quote is often attributed to Einstein (the attribution is disputed), but it fits perfectly here.
If a rescue keeps the same commercial DNA, the second collapse is not a surprise. It is the expected result.
A legal reset is not the same thing as a business reset.
Where my 6-Lens Review fits into this
Repeat failure is rarely a Technician-only problem (the Technician is the insolvency practitioner running a good administration).
You need technical competence, yes, but retail repeat failure usually needs a wider set of lenses:
- Strategist: what is the customer reason to choose to buy from this business next year?
- Turnaround: what is the stabilisation plan that stops the bleeding?
- Innovator: what structural change makes the business different, not just smaller?
- Litigator: what is the downside plan if it goes wrong? Who gets hurt?
- Empath: the bit people avoid. The honest assessment of management and culture. Will they actually change?
A rescue can fail purely because management will not change, even if the spreadsheet looks plausible.
This blog also complements an earlier blog I wrote about my 6 Lens Review, click here. That blog discusses the need for a wider skillset, and why I have built the 6 Lens Review.
Closing Thought
Retail rescues can work. But repeat failure keeps happening when we confuse a legal reset with a business reset, and when the incentives allow the pain to be pushed onto the unsecured creditor base.
If the insolvency profession wants to keep public trust, we should be brave enough to ask, every time a rescue fails quickly: Were we part of a genuine rescue, or did we help keep a failing model on life support long enough for more losses to be heaped upon trade suppliers, landlords and HMRC?
That is a hard question, but, I believe, the right one.
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